


the little things

by greenbucket



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Multi, Polyamory Negotiations, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-04 16:59:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14597553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenbucket/pseuds/greenbucket
Summary: Camilla’s never been as happy as she is with them, so fuck society and fuck Valentine’s Day. And fuck Valentine’s Day cards in particular.





	the little things

**Author's Note:**

> For the rarepair bingo, filling the Jack/Lardo/Camilla and first major holiday squares. Valentine's isn't really major, but there you have it.

The most ridiculous thing about all of it is that Camilla doesn’t even _care_ about Valentine’s Day.

Genuinely, entirely, completely and utterly Camilla could not give less of a fuck about whether her February 14th is romantic or not. She’s lived through over two dozen of them by now and while for the times she’s been in relationships on the day it’s been fun – great sex, or a great meal, or a heart-warming gift, or all three – Valentine’s Day as a concept doesn’t hold any weight in her heart.

If Camilla cares about someone, she’s going to make it known all year round; she’s a firm believer that a relationship is made up of the little things more than anything else. Picking something up from the store without having to be asked, sharing each other’s space without having to entertain one another, keeping a steady head when the pipes burst and water floods into the electrics (though Camilla could do with not ever experiencing that exact relationship-building scenario again).

Camilla has never been too ashamed that she doesn’t have the inclination or the time to pour her efforts into others’ happiness, to do the big romantic Valentine’s song and dance. Camilla has her own goals, her own desires and interests and needs, and though she’s long accepted her dreams of tennis prodigyhood won’t ever come to fruition that doesn’t mean she isn’t already setting her sights elsewhere. But that she won’t let anything stop her succeeding doesn’t cancel out that she wants to know other people’s goals and desires and interests and needs, or that she wants to support them getting there, too.

Camilla wants to share her life with the people she loves, not build an existence around them.

Plus, sue her maybe for being a cynic or whatever, but it just feels insincere to show love just because the world says to, in a way the world says is acceptable. Camilla is pretty sure her, Jack, and Lardo have already crossed the line into socially unacceptable just by the fact of their dating, and Camilla’s never been as happy as she is with them, so fuck society and fuck Valentine’s Day.

And fuck Valentine’s Day cards in particular.

Okay, maybe Camilla could have considered what she was going to get them for Valentine’s Day in advance of the evening of the day itself, but in her defence, she hadn’t been aware there _were_ actual plans for the three of them to do anything.

Her phone doesn’t lie though when she checks her messages one more time:

**salumi** ♥ (18:49)  
just to warn u, be ready for the biggest teddy bear u’ve ever seen and 93487538475389475 chocolates when u come over

It’s now nearing 9pm. Camilla texted back in the chat for the three of them to say she was on her way over just before she left work because she’s not a monster that’s going to leave them hanging all evening, but _fuck_. She feels like the biggest hack of a girlfriend ever and like she’s missed a step going down the stairs because she didn’t know they were planning this. She _should’ve_ – Jack loves showy stuff, would’ve probably bought or done for Camilla anything under the sun when it had been her birthday. Lardo doesn’t do showy, but she could plan the moon landing single handed if the mood struck her. Camilla should know who her partners are, should know what they’re like.

Jack and Lardo have sneakily wormed their way in to every corner of Camilla’s life, into the details and the day to day and her weekly phone calls with her mom and the idle office watercooler chitchat. Jack had been the first to crack on the saying I love you front, but Camilla hadn’t been far behind, and Lardo doesn’t need to say it for it to be known. Camilla doesn’t know how she’d reel it all back in, all the bits of shared life with them, and she certainly doesn’t want to.

And then there have been other times, and more than enough resulting fucking awful, teary arguments and their accompanying mature discussions once everyone’s calmed down a little. It hits Camilla afresh, though, standing in the tiny 24-hour store of her local gas station and staring at the half-hearted array of cheap, flimsy cards, that they’ve only been dating – officially dating, that is – for less than a year. And she didn't think they'd want to do Valentine's Day.

When she’d seen Lardo for the first time since college a couple of years back, it had been two parts surreal and one part _oh no she’s still cute_. Camilla hasn’t ever been exactly shy, so she’d gone over and struck up conversation and then, when she felt like there were the right signals being sent, made a move.

Only for Lardo to look very awkward and say, “Oh, shit, I’m sorry. I actually have a boyfriend?”

Camilla had been disappointed, but she hadn’t been looking at the time for more than a one or two-time thing, so it hadn’t been the end of the world. She’d smiled instead and asked, “Is it super presumptuous to throw a guess at you and– what was his name? Shitty?”

Lardo had confirmed and then, to Camilla’s shock, said, “But actually, well… It’s me and Jack.”

“Zimmermann? _Sweet_.” And he had been sweet, back at Samwell; kind of absent, and very into his hockey, but sweet and well-meaning and really, unspeakably hot. He’d been nice to go to dances with, but Camilla had been busy in that last year, all of it a bit of a blur.

And they’d exchanged numbers politely, and Camilla had assumed that was that. Except that the next week they ran into each other again, and then Camilla into Jack literally while he was jogging, and all three of them at the same cinema viewing.

“Maybe this is a sign,” Camilla had joked as the ads started, trying not to feel like a third wheel even though Jack’s arm was around Lardo’s shoulder and it was very clearly a date, “Like, the universe telling us we should hang out.”

And she really had been joking, because Camilla didn’t believe in that kind of thing, but after the movie ended Camilla found herself with an invite to go out for lunch and it all spiralled from there. Camilla still doesn’t know when or how it happened, but suddenly she was best friends with these two people from college and then she was crushing hard, and there were a terrible few months where they all danced around each other – or Jack and Lardo dated, and Camilla danced around them with her crush that she thought was returned but fuck, what were the chances? – until Lardo bit the bullet. It had been a very thoroughly sexually enlightening weekend, and Camilla hadn’t considered herself sexually unenlightened beforehand. And more importantly, they had had a mature discussion, and then they were dating.

And now here she is on Valentine’s Day, almost a year later, having a crisis about how she hasn’t followed a holiday she doesn’t care about because she hasn’t bought her boyfriend or girlfriend anything to show she loves them, which is something they already know. Strange how things work out sometimes.

Camilla looks at the cards before her again, carefully assessing. The guy behind the till is watching her, popping his gum every once in a while. The radio is playing some kind of sports coverage, and if Camilla doesn’t pick a card soon there won’t be any of the day left to share with Jack and Lardo, card or not. They’ve got her a _teddy bear_ and a _million billion chocolates_. It’s a disaster.

Camilla picks her card and walks to the till, the uneasy feeling of having messed up starting to form in her throat.

-

Camilla doesn’t live with Jack and Lardo because of the dating less than a year thing, but they do live together, because of the dating for many years thing.

She does have a key, though, because Jack is an all-in kind of person and Lardo is the kind that likes to not nurse Camilla back to health after she gets a fever waiting on their doorstep in the rain like an Austen heroine. And she has the passcode to the gate, because it’s a big house bought on an NHL salary and Jack still gets reporters trying to catch him unawares from time to time, so they need an electric gate.

Camilla parks her car, looks at the ugly blue of the envelope of her chosen card, and shrugs off the badly done job feeling the best she can. Valentine’s Day is not the be-all-and-end-all of expressing love. Jack and Lardo know how much they mean to her, that they’re some of her best friends and she loves them and wants a future with them, and she knows they like her, too.

When she gets to the front door, Camilla has to shove it open really hard. There’s a thudding sound of something falling over and when Camilla wriggles through the gap she’s managed to push, she sees the giant teddy bear in the hallway. It really is big. Like, at least as tall as Jack and about twice as wide.

There are also roughly twenty boxes of chocolate stacked haphazardly across the hallway. It’s not particularly romantic, or particularly well-presented, and so it’s with some considerable confusion and a fair amount of nerves that Camilla follows the sounds of life to the kitchen. Lardo is chopping vegetables, huge already-sliced stacks lining up across the counters, and Camilla lets herself enjoy watching for a moment from the doorway. Fuck Valentine’s Day, but it does remind her to be thankful for what she’s got with Jack and Lardo more than usual.

Eventually though, the suspense is too great and she has to ask, “Hey, Lardo? I got your text, and the bear and the chocolate are a really nice gift–” and Camilla has a whole spiel planned about how she hasn’t bought them anything but it’s not a reflection on them or meant to suggest she doesn’t care, it’s just that they literally didn’t mention doing anything other than a Netflix and chill for Valentine’s. She really hopes that’s okay. Camilla is a little self-centred, probably, but she likes to think she’s not selfish.

“Valentine’s present?” says Lardo, “Oh, no, I just meant I got them for a project and they’re blocking the hallway so don’t, like, trip and break your neck or whatever.”

The tension snaps. “Oh, fuck you,” says Camilla, “you couldn’t have explained? Lards, I’ve been having a fucking existential freak out about the nature of love under consumerism and whatever the fuck.”

Lardo doesn’t turn from where she’s now cutting mushrooms at speed. “Babe, you have that freak out like once a month completely unprompted anyways. Also, I totally got you guys some joke mugs, I just fucked up the mailing so they’re not getting here til next week.”

The I-messed-up, I’m-doing-a-bad-job feeling closes its fist right around Camilla’s throat again. She really wants this to work with Jack and Lardo and for a second there it seemed she wasn’t alone in not bothering with Valentine’s, but she’s let her own apathy towards it rule. Lardo bought _joke mugs._

Feeling a little pathetic, Camilla puts her card on the kitchen table. “I only went via murder gas station and got you guys this ugly card.”

Camilla may be playing catch up on all the little tells Jack and Lardo know inside out, but when Lardo turns she looks genuinely moved. “ _Murder_ murder gas station?” she asks.

“The very one.”

“First, you going to murder gas station says more than any card ever could. Second, you know I love ugly shit,” Lardo says and the squeezing shame of a job badly done begins to ease in Camilla’s chest. Lardo rolls her eyes like she can tell, stretches up on her toes to kiss Camilla on the cheek on her way to get paprika, continues, “Plus you know Jack is gonna magnet it to the fridge no matter what it looks like. _He_ has shown us both up, though, I gotta say. Ordered about fifty bouquets of flowers and lit candles in the bedroom and shit.”

Camilla’s instinctive responses to that are _why_ and then _that’s a fire hazard_ and then _oh no this really matters to him like I knew but didn’t want to know_ and then _that romantic piece of goobery shit_. “Oh.”

“And I’ve volunteered to make us dinner, as you can probs tell.”

And Camilla says again, “ _Oh_.” She sits down at the kitchen table and listens to the romantic playlist that’s painfully corny and not romantic at all that’s already drifting from up the stairs, smells the food Lardo is cooking even though she can never be bothered to cook, looks at her sad crumpled ugly blue envelope with a gas station card inside.

And Lardo says, “Jesus God, are you crying?” And then yells, “Jack! Come downstairs, Cam’s crying!”

Jack’s worry lines are out in full force when he joins them in the kitchen. He’s wearing his nicer Adidas sports t-shirt, the navy one that both Lardo and Camilla whistle at every time. Usually for date night. Jack’s wearing his date night shirt and he put all this work in and Camilla feels like an asshole. He sits at the table with her, holds her fucking hand, and she feels even worse.

“Please don’t cry. This is all okay, isn’t it?” Jack asks. “I didn’t know if this would be too overboard, but we didn’t want to say anything to make you worry, and I didn’t know if I would have time to get everything ready, so I just… didn’t say anything.” He sighs, rubs the back of his neck and looks all around apologetic. Camilla feels bad about it. “Except Lards knew what to expect, so she knew. I’ll – I don’t know. We can arrange something. If this is bad.”

Camilla looks over to Lardo at the stove to share their usual _would you look at this guy? Who’s getting the blanket and who’s giving him a hug?_ look, though slightly tear-blurred on Camilla’s part because she’s dating the sweetest people on Earth and she’s completely let them down. Except Lardo is chewing on her lip, watching them and letting the food burn a little.

“It’s our first Valentine’s and, like, you didn’t really… say anything?” explains Lardo after sharing a look with Jack. “So we thought it would just be better if we just didn’t make a fuss? And went ahead as usual? If we’ve made the total wrong guess just say the word.”

Camilla blinks at Lardo, who looks like she wants to bite her nails a little even though she’s been so good trying to break the habit. She looks down at where Jack’s hand is still in hers, and it is _sweaty_. They’ve been legitimately worried about this. Camilla has been out here not giving Valentine’s Day any real thought, and in doing so she’s totally missed that Jack and Lardo have been quietly panicking that this is going to be a tipping point for her, for their relationship.

She realises, with a painful little twist of her heart in her chest, that Jack and Lardo have about as much clue how to do this whole relationship as she does, which is to say none at all.

It’s a bit disappointing, to be honest, to realise that despite all their mature discussions, some part of Camilla has still been thinking of herself as an add on to the relationship; Jack-and-Lardo and then Camilla subbed in, on a trial basis, even as the months and months passed. Almost a year, and a good eighteen months of line-blurring friendship before that. Camilla’s been thinking she’s the one playing catch up, trying to make up for lost time and the shared history of years that Jack and Lardo have between them, to find a niche for herself in their tried and tested dynamic. That she’s the one who’ll one day get sat down for a ‘we need to talk’ talk, and it’ll be Jack and Lardo on one side of the table and her on the other and they’ll say ‘this was nice, but it’s time to get back to reality’, and she’ll say ‘okay, then, thanks for your time’, like it’s been a fucking job interview.

But it turns out Jack and Lardo are just as clueless and unsure and turned around as she is now they’ve entered unknown territory together, with no reference points to guide them, and it’s all got a little deeper than they expected in the feelings department without them looking. Camilla isn’t an add on; Jack-and-Lardo-and-Camilla is its own dynamic. Their relationship is still new, but the three of them are in the newness together figuring it out. And Jack and Lardo think Camilla doesn’t _like it_. That just because Valentine’s isn’t meaningful to her that she doesn’t like that it is to them and that they want to include her in it. God.

“Don’t even think about changing a single thing, okay?” she says, smudging her make up to oblivion as she wipes her eyes and her snotty nose. She’s never been a clean crier. “This is the nicest thing ever. I just feel like a douche because I could not care less about Valentine’s Day if you paid me–”

–Jack winces, and Lardo almost goes for her thumbnail and stops herself just in time–

“–but I _do_ care about you guys.” Camilla looks down at the table and lets herself feel for a second the guilt of dropping the ball on something that matters to the people she likes most in the world. “You know I love you, and I love that you want to do all this, even with me when all I brought was a shitty card that I got a half hour ago in the murder gas station. I promise next year I’ll do something better. I don’t know what because I have zero experience, but I’ll think of something by then.”

Jack is squeezing Camilla’s hand hard, hard enough that she looks up to see if he’s okay. He looks a little constipated, which is how he usually looks when he’s got a lot of emotions vying for attention.

“You went to murder gas station?” he asks, and he sounds just as touched as Lardo did, constipated expression turning to tiny, bashful smile, and something breaks free and soars in Camilla’s chest.

Lardo says, validated at last, “ _Right?_ If that isn’t a true show of love then what even is, bro,” and then, “Oh fuck, the dinner’s burning.”

Jack’s immediately out of his chair to help like he knows a thing about cooking anything other than the exact meals approved by the Falconer’s nutritionist, and Lardo is laughing and elbowing him out of the way and telling him this is all his fault because he had to talk emotions in the kitchen. Camilla blows her nose into her work shirt sleeve and watches them squabble for a bit, her heart light in her chest, then gets up to actually help, nudging Jack towards the stairs to make sure none of his candles have fallen over and set the bed on fire.

-

Later, Jack insists that the top blanket of the bed is only slightly singed and so they push it onto the floor and have enough Valentine’s sex that when they’re done and sprawled out in bed together, they’re all more than a little sweaty and sticky and sore.

Camilla has one hand resting on the famous Zimmermann ass, and her head resting on Lardo’s thigh as Lardo strokes through Camilla’s hair, slow and soothing enough that Camilla can feel herself drifting into a half-sleep. It’s pretty much the best place she can imagine being.

“We never even opened your card,” Lardo says, breaking the quiet.

“After you risked murder gas station for it,” says Jack around a yawn, the end muffled as he resettles with his face mashed into the pillow.

“Oh, well,” says Camilla. The truth is, there weren’t any Valentine’s specific cards at the gas station, so she’d improvised with a condolences card and a marker pen she’d found in her glove compartment. She figures it’ll be fine; they’re still figuring things out, and the message she’d written inside had been long enough to make her have to write in tiny letters. That's romantic, right? “Save my love declarations for tomorrow. I’m not much of a Valentine’s girl anyway.”

**Author's Note:**

> Note: Lardo is a type of salumi and so Lardo is salumi :)


End file.
